Washburn Guitars


Washburn Guitars is an American manufacturer and importer of guitars, mandolins, and other string instruments. The original company was established in 1883 in Chicago, Illinois. The modern Washburn is a division of US Music Corp., in turn now owned by JAM Industries USA.

Corporate history

1864-1940

began in 1864 as a partnership of businessmen George W. Lyon and Patrick J. Healy, acting as the Chicago outlet for Boston sheet music publisher Oliver Ditson and Company. By 1865, Lyon & Healy had expanded into reed organs and some small instruments. The company achieved independence by 1880, and around 1888 the company launched fully into fretted and plucked instruments
under the George Washburn brand, which was Lyon's first and middle name. Lyon & Healy 1898 catalog listed 28 different styles of "Washburn" guitars, ranging from $15 to $145.
Tracing the history of any particular instrument of this period presents many obstacles. Not only did the Lyon & Healy company often change designs to follow the rapidly evolving consumer demand, but the company also repaired instruments, and offered engraving services, including decorating instruments that it retailed but did not actually manufacture. As well, they built instruments for other retailers and distributors under various house brands, and outsourced construction of some models.
In 1912, Washburn introduced the Lakeside Jumbo guitar, which some consider the first dreadnought-sized guitar. It bridged the gap between smaller-bodied "parlor" guitars of the late 19th and early 20th century and modern-day dreadnought and jumbo acoustic guitars.
George Lyon retired from the company in 1889. Patrick Healy then led the company into a period of major expansion, beginning with a larger new factory and improved mass-production techniques, and soon dominated the domestic market. Their 1892 catalog claimed to manufacture 100,000 instruments annually. Healy died 1905.
By the 1920s, Lyon & Healy faced growing competition from other instrument manufacturers as well as from the rise of other forms of entertainment, particularly film and the gramophone. Lyon & Healy gradually shifted manufacturing chores onto wholesaler Tonk Brothers, to whom they sold the guitar portion of the business in 1928, continuing to produce their own lines of harps, pianos, and organs.
Tonk Brothers turned to manufacturer J.R. Stewart Company to purchase and operate the massive factory, but this transition proved problematic and Stewart went bankrupt in 1930. Some of the Stewart assets were acquired by the Regal Musical Instrument Company, which had purchased the "Regal" brand name in 1908 from Lyon & Healy. Regal was chosen to reopen the Washburn factory. Though the Washburn brand was preserved, it never regained its preeminence, and by the early 1940s had declined to nothing.

Modern era

An unbroken lineage is often alluded to by Washburn International, in press releases and advertising materials, and on the company website:
There is no direct connection between the original Washburn brand and the modern Washburn International.
In the early 1960s, retail store The Chicago Guitar Gallery hired Rudolf "Rudy" Schlacher, a young German violin builder, as a repair technician. A few years later, Schlacher opened The Sound Post to focus on guitars. He soon realized the sales potential for lower-cost quality instruments.
Tom Beckmen and his wife Judy Fink Beckmen in 1972 left careers as music salesman and teacher to launch a wholesale music business in Los Angeles, Beckmen Musical Instruments. It was Beckmen Music that resurrected the Washburn name, and beginning in 1974 applied it to a series of quality imported acoustic guitars, made in Japan by Terada, as well as a selection of mandolins and banjos.
Fritz Tasch, Rudy Schlacher and Rick Johnstone, as Fretted Industries, Inc., acquired the Washburn name in 1977 when the Beckmens took their business a different direction, and so the Washburn name was returned to Chicago. With assistance from Ikutaro Kakehashi, Schlacher was able to find instrument factories in Japan that could meet the desired standards.
Fretted Industries acquired other lines as well, such as Oscar Schmidt autoharps.
Schlacher bought out Johnstone in 1987, and changed the company name to Washburn International. A stateside manufacturing operation was opened in 1991 for higher-end, short-run, and one-off instruments, as well as development and prototyping. That year, a Chicago Tribune article confidently places Washburn "among the top three guitar manufacturers in the world," behind only Fender and Gibson.
On December 15, 2002, Washburn International announced that it had completed acquisition of U.S. Music Corporation, and would be rolling its assets into that company in a reverse merger. Schlacher remained as CFO, appointing Gary Gryczan to COO; Gryczan had been Washburn's CFO from 1995 through 1998. The new USM's headquarters were in Mundelein, which also housed the stateside Washburn luthiery, often referred to as "the USA Custom Shop." The USA Custom Shop was previously located at Elston Ave. and Springfield Ave in the 1990s in an old factory that was used as an icehouse after the great Chicago fire, it was rumored to be haunted by the victims whose bodies had been stored there.
Schlacher announced completion of selling USM to JAM Industries on August 24, 2009, and that he would be stepping away from his company after fully four decades. As R S Consulting he remained a consultant to the musical-instrument industry and was an executive producer for a small-budget film
The corporate offices of U.S. Music were relocated to Buffalo Grove in 2012.

Production

Very few modern Washburn instruments have been built by the company itself. It has relied on outside factories and luthiers to fulfill their designs and meet public demand.
The first modern Washburn instruments were full-size acoustic guitars imported from Japan by Beckmen Music. The 1974 range included one folk-style guitar and eight dreadnoughts of increasing quality and decoration: W-240-12, W-250, W-260, W-280, W-300, W-300-12, W-500, W-600.
Under Rudy Schlacher, most Washburn models were ordered in runs of 200 units, rather than ongoing production; if sales went well, a further run might be ordered. This application of just-in-time manufacturing kept the company from needing to warehouse and liquidate overproduction, improving profitability. As a result, many Washburn instruments are difficult to locate once out of production, and are scarcer than the "limited editions" of other manufacturers.
The first Washburn electric guitars were the Wing Series models, offered 1978-1984. These instruments featured innovative push-pull split humbuckers, brass hardware and inlays, and neck-through construction. Most of the Wing Series models were produced by Yamaki, a Japanese manufacturer of Washburn acoustic guitars as well as their own Daion brand.
By 1991, production of Washburn instruments had shifted almost entirely to Korea, built by Samick. When Samick opened their Cileungsi, Indonesia, facility in 1992, this factory also began to produce Washburn-branded instruments, generally identifiable by an "SI-" serial number prefix.
From 1992 to 2000 Washburn housed the USA Custom Shop in a factory at Elston Ave. and Springfield Ave. Grover Jackson ran production for the first half of the 90’s and Larry English ran production for the second half of the 90’s. The building was so old it was used as an icehouse after the great Chicago fire and rumored to have been haunted. At least two guitar heists occurred there when thieves backed a box truck through a wall and loaded the truck with guitars getting away cleanly.
Between 1994 and 2001, ten models of acoustic guitar were built for Washburn in the United States, five by Tacoma Guitars and five by Bourgeois Guitars.
Washburn brought out a line of four USA-made dreadnoughts, available from 2002 to 2008. These were the D-78, D-80, D-82, and D-84.
In 2012, when JAM Industries declined to renew the lease on the Mundelein facility, the Washburn luthiery closed. At the time, the Washburn facility was the ninth-largest employer in the village, providing 180 jobs. The stated intent was to reopen at a smaller building in Buffalo Grove but this did not materialize. A few Washburn models are produced in Cincinnati.
As of 2017, primary production has largely shifted from Korea to factories in Indonesia and China.

Innovations

Most widely known for its guitars, Washburn also makes electric basses, acoustic basses, banjos, mandolins, travel guitars, ukuleles, and amplifiers, as well as accessories including guitar cases, clothing, tuners, and straps.
In the 1980s, Washburn introduced the Festival Series of acoustic/electric guitars. They were thinner than standard acoustic guitars and less acoustically resonant by design, thereby reducing susceptibility to feedback, a significant problem using acoustic or electrified acoustic guitars in large-venue performances. The addition in later models of sound slots, a patented innovation, further reduced the possibility of feedback, and the guitars quickly became the go-to stage acoustic for artists such as Jimmy Page, George Harrison, and Bob Dylan. In the early 1990s when MTV introduced their Unplugged series, hardly a show went by without seeing a Festival Series guitar. The design also lent itself well to acoustic basses, and Washburn's AB Series quickly became popular both for its look and its tone, whether amplified or unplugged.
of a Washburn RB2802 eight-string bass.
In recent years, Washburn licensed several guitar construction features:
Over the past 40 years, Washburn has accreted a system of identifying some of the most pertinent features in many of its acoustic instruments and some of the electric. Additional letters may be used to indicate the instrument's finish. While imperfectly applied, and sometimes awkwardly long, this can often be useful in identifying a given guitar.
;suffix —
This often combines with the prefix to tell a guitar's story. For example, the WLG110SWCEK indicates that it's part of the Woodline series, likely top of the line, Grand Auditorium size, all solid wood, cutaway, piezo pickup, and originally included a case.

Past and present models

Any given series may have as few as only one model.

Electric guitars

prefixSeriesa.k.a.typedurationcomments
JJazzhollowbody archtop1989-date
HBHollow Bodysemihollow archtop1981-date-
BBantamheadless bass1984-1986no connection to 1990s Bantams
GBBantamheadless bass/guitar1984-1986no connection to 1990s Bantams
GBantamheadless guitar1984-1986no connection to 1990s Bantams
CTCenturiancarved-top1997-2002
PCenturiancarved-top1997-2002
ECenturiancarved-top2001-2002
CPCulprit1998-2000
DimeDimebag Darrell1995-2004signature line
GForce1983-1988
CSHard Rock2000-2002
NXNextar2002-2003Stephen's Extended Cutaway
PTPoptop2000-2002
RSHard RockRogue Star2000-2002
WGHard Rock2000-2002
WRHard Rock2000-2002
HM2008-2010Series, not prefix
WIIdol1999-2010
WMHM2008-2010no connection to 1990s WM
WVWavepoint; Vee2008-2010
WINIdol2010-2014
JBJennifer Batten2000-2004signature line
KCChicago1989-1991
LSLaredoLegacy; SilveradoS copy1992-1994
LTLaredoLegacy; SilveradoT copy1993-1994
MRMagnum1997-2000
BTMaverickBillyT; Bantam1995-2002all 24.75" scale
WMMaverick1997-2002USA build; no connection to 2008 WM
DDMayaDan Donegan2005-2010signature line
MGMercury1992-1996
NCNick Catanese2005-2009signature line
NNuno Bettencourt1990-dateStephen's Extended Cutaway
PSPaul Stanley1998-datesignature line
RXRX2011-date
SIScott Ian2005-2010signature line
AStage1980-1986
ECExtended Cutaway1988-1991Stephen's Extended Cutaway
SSSteve Stevens1993-1994
AFTourAce Frehley1987-1988signature line
FVTourFlying Vee1984-1985
HMTour1985-1987
RRTour1985-1987
RSTour1987-1988
WPTourPaul copy1987-1991
WTTour1984-1994
Wing1978-1985
SBWing Reissue1991-1995
XX2002-2010
XMXM2011-date
SSonamaster2016-date
PXParallaxe2013-date
PXMParallaxe2013-date
PXSParallaxe2013-date
PXLParallaxeLP shape2013-date
TBTabu2009
WBLyonS copy1994-1995

Basses

prefixSeriesa.k.a.typedurationcomments
B1983-1985
B1992
WingScavenger1980-1981
BStage1981-1984
BStage1981-1984
BForceP copy1983-1986
BABT1987-1989
XSAxxess1990-1991
BBBantam2006-2010
XBBantam1994-2006
MBMercury1992-1993
MBMercury2002-2006
RBRB1999-2003
WPShadowP copy1997-1999
WJShadowJ copy1997-1999
SStatus 10001988-1993
SHBStu Hamm2012-2016signature
TTaurus2002-date
AB2004-2006
Bootsy CollinsSpace Bass2002-2006
CB2007-2010
DB2000
Force2002-2010
M2002-2003
WBIdol2007-2010
SBSonamaster2016-date
ABFestivalAcoustic1988-date

Acoustic guitars

prefixSeriesshapedurationtypecomments
RWRoger Waters2004acoustic/electricRW300 signature
Ddreadnought1978-2010
WDdreadnought2011-date
R125th Anniversaryparlor2008-2009
WSJ125th Anniversarysouthern jumbo2008-2009
Dsouthern jumbo1985-2000
Ffolk1978-2010
WFfolk2012-date
WGgrand auditorium2011-date
Jjumbo1991-2010
SJsouthern jumbo2004-2005
WBbaby jumbo2007-2010
WJjumbo2011-date
PSPaul Stanleydreadnought2007
PSPaul Stanleyfolk2007
PRPrairie State1920s2002-2003
DCdreadnought1987-1994Stephen's Extended Cutaway

Endorsers

Washburn uses the mechanism of endorsements, where:
The current .

Standard .

Product lineup

2017 Signature Lines

Bettencourt has endorsed several Washburn acoustic models as well. There is the N7 7-string model, and an acoustic/electric based on the Festival Series, the EA20SNB.
model.